Work Text:
Corrin sat at the dining room table watching her wife work. She slowly sipped from a steaming mug, the dark coffee invigorating her. Azura hummed as she worked, gentle melodies drifting from her lips, soft music in the bright morning air. The sun shined through the window and bright rays of light illuminated the quiet domestic scene Corrin saw spread out before her. She sighed.
Azura, even after all these years, was still so beautiful.
She moved fluidly and with grace, her limbs long and limber, her steps measured and precise. She practically danced as she worked, whirling around the kitchen in a flutter of fabric. She was wearing a simple cloth apron over her dress. She had cut her hair like her mother, having finally shorn her knee-length blue locks. It was easier to manage, she had said, particularly when balancing her own duties with raising children. It was just too hard to maintain hair that long.
Corrin didn’t particularly mind.
Azura had aged with grace, her youthful beauty flowering into middle age with dignity. Her fashion had changed, sure, and her hair. She did truly resemble her mother more now. At least, resembled the paintings Corrin had scene. Wrinkles were beginning to show on her face, laugh lines around her mouth and eyes that showed when she smiled.
She smiled a lot.
Azura dropped to her knees and sifted through a cupboard, looking for some ingredient or another. Corrin couldn’t quite be sure what she was cooking.
Corrin stared into her coffee, watching the swirls of cream absently. All these long years together and she had remained the same, unchanging as the tides. Her face as youthful as the day they met, her frame slim and young. Not a trace of wrinkles anywhere. Once she had called herself a monster, but Azura would have none of it. Not a monster. Just different.
It had affected their love life, of course. Azura still loved her deeply, but more intimate elements became difficult as the gaps in their age became more and more apparent. It was Corrin who brought it up first, uncomfortable with the idea of being intimate with someone so much older than she. Azura brushed her off, assuring her that it was fine. And yet, as Azura aged, they found it harder and harder to do such things. Corrin joked once that many older people would love to be with someone so much younger. Azura didn’t laugh then.
It became irrelevant regardless when they adopted their children. Two boys, Kana and Shigure. They were both grown now, out living lives of their own. They, too, had surpassed Corrin in age recently. Even Kana, the younger boy, was in his twenties now. All the while, Corrin remained the same. Unchanging. Not aging. A static girl trapped outside time. In the back of her mind, she knew that it would be like this forever. She sipped her coffee.
Azura stopped her frantic rushing behind Corrin and kissed the top of her head. Corrin tilted her head up and looked into Azura’s eyes. They kissed. Azura still tasted wonderful, as she always had. When they had gotten married she tasted like a spring, cool and refreshing. When they adopted Shigure and Kana, she tasted like flowers. Now, alone together in their house, she tasted like sugar. Corrin smiled.
She must be baking something.
They had built their home in Valla, of course. They had left the surface world behind, allowing the kingdoms to rule there in peace. Shiro was king of Hoshido, now, and any day Siegbert was poised to take his father’s throne. The other royal siblings still visited regularly.
In Valla they had tried to instate a more democratic system, as Azura had no interest in ruling and Corrin suspected a second successive dragon monarch wouldn’t go over so well. Shigure was in politics now, one of the representatives that governed Azura’s people. It had been a hard road of rebuilding from the ruins of Anankos’ rule, but the land prospered now. It was a hard life for many people, but it was a good one. The land remained beautiful, bright falls cascading into the air, thick forests wrapping around islands of rock and grass.
Their house was on their own little island, away from the noise and frenzy of the world. There was a lake out back, a quiet place where they loved to swim and fish. Azura had taught Corrin to swim there, and they in turn taught their children.
Corrin hid when they came to visit, sometimes. She tried to make herself scarce, or to be out running errands, or just feigning illness. Seeing her own children growing while she remained made her uncomfortable.
Like Azura, they assured her time and time again that it was fine. To them, it was all they had known of their parents. Their mothers, the graceful songstress and the youthful dragon.
It started with simple things. Being unable to find things she left around the house, forgetting to get the laundry, failing to recall when friends and family were visiting. Nothing to cause alarm, certainly, but she knew.
It first happened in autumn, as the leaves changed from green to orange to brown. She had forgotten Shigure’s name, for just a minute. Oh, that’s right, she said when Azura reminded her. She had chastised herself for it, ashamed she could not recall her own child’s name. The guilt remained long after Azura had forgotten the incident. As had the fear.
Corrin smiled again at Azura. She knew that Corrin often did this – spending times lost in her own thoughts, wandering through her mind. She watched Azura mixing batter. She must be making cookies.
It was strange how clearly Corrin could remember some things, but not others. The bad things were often the clearest. It took years for her to finally say it out loud.
“I don’t want to forget,” she had said, tears rolling down her cheeks.
And it was true. She could feel it happening, bits at a time. Pieces of her memory that didn’t quite fit, details that were no longer present. Faces, names, dates.
“We’ve seen so much together,” she had cried. The sparkling sea in the starlight, rivers of fire, waterfalls and valleys and mountains. The autumnal forests of Hoshido, the dense thickets in Mokushu. The icy plains in Nohr. Spires of rock and crumbling catacombs. Beautiful opera halls, busting mountain villages, palaces of pleasure. Castles, towns, villages, ports, temples, ruins. The bright sunshine of Shirasagi in the summer, the dark bioluminescent gardens in Windmire. So much beauty, and so much cruelty. Friends and loved ones who fought and died together. The very best and very worst the world had to offer. “I…I don’t want to lose these memories.”
Azura had held her and sang to her softly while she cried.
When did that happen? Corrin tried to remember. Things like that were more frustrating than anything else. If she forgot something important, it would just be gone, as if it never happened. But things like this…knowing that she should remember something but being unable to…
Azura kissed the top of her head again. “Cookies are in the oven, love. Do you want to go for a walk while they bake?”
Azura’s voice soothed her, and at times even helped her remember. That song, in particular. Azura found herself humming it often, hoping that the music in the air would be enough to aid Corrin’s failing memory. It did help, but only so.
They walked out back to the lake, hand in hand, bare feet soaking in the cool water. It was a beautiful morning, the subdued warmth of a morning preluding a balmy day. Birds sang in the distance. Azura crouched in the water and drew a smooth stone from the lake. The two held hands as they skipped stones across the water.
Corrin watched as the stones skipped, each bounce shorter and shorter, each ripple smaller and smaller, until finally the stone sank and the ripples faded entirely, enveloped by the breadth of the water’s surface.